SARs In Action!

No, not SARS, the deadly virus. SARs, or Special Administrative Regions. Those funky city-state ex-country, ex-colonial ambition type thingys that Hong Kong and Macau have become. I know it's been a while since I've delivered the sort of pictures and adventures you require, so I tried to make up for it.

I made the trek down to Hong Kong on Friday, to hang out with Dave and Paul. Pretty low key night Friday, just some dinner in Lan Kwai Fong. Saturday morning, way too early for me, we got up and decided to visit Victoria Peak. Yes, I've done this before, but this time, we walked. And walked. And walked some more. I believe we walked the Peak Trail, which (obviously) goes to the peak. It starts in Pok Fu Lam Country Park, which is on the west side of the island. It's up a steep climb, and my legs still hurt on Monday.

This is where we started, at the reservior. The anvil thing in the middle is the Peak. As you can see, it was a pretty hazy day.
Dave and Paul ready for the climb.
I don't have many pics from the climb up the hill, as we were nearly running (up in half an hour!). But here's a peak pic. You can hardly make out Kowloon.
We came down on the Hong Kong side of the peak, kind of running with the tram. There were some nice little waterfalls and some really nice houses up there.
After getting to the bottom, and landing in Central, we walked over to Causeway Bay (itself quite a hike) and just shopped around. Around 4 pm, Dave and I took a jetfoil over to Macau.
Saturday night we did a tour of the casinos of Macau. Right now, there's really only one Vegas style casino, the rest are old school, Monaco type. But the growth in Macau is nothing short of astounding (like most of Asia), and there are at least 5 casinos opening up in the next year. I lost $300 at the first place, but made it all up at the last. We're talking HK$ here, so around US$36. I'm definitely NOT a high roller.
There's only so much gambling one can take, so Sunday was a day of sightseeing. Despite being slightly larger than a postage stamp, Macau has a rich heritage and lots of stuff to see. The Cantonese/Portuguese mix is facinating. The highest point in Macau (Macau describes an SAR and a city) is Guia Fortress and lighthouse. It was right behind our hotel, so that was first on the itinerary.
It offers some amazing views, like of a mint green church.
In the fort there's a little church that's being restored. Again, a interesting mix of Christianity, Portuguese, and Cantonese. This theme will continue for much of the day.
Walking down into Macau (city) we come across the Ruins of St Paul's Cathedral. Supposedly built in the late 1500s, it was ruined by a typhoon and fire in the mid 1800s. All that's left is the facade and some tombs.
There's also the Church of St Dominic's, which is pretty cool looking, both day and night.
Following the culture portion of this excursion, we found Macau Tower, the 10th largest free standing tower in the world! Yay! No, the tower's not crooked. Just an optical illusion from the camera.
Anyways, the tower is pretty much pointless, I mean, who cares about a 338m tall tower? We did go up it, of course. And the tower does have some cool events. One, you can sky jump from it, which is kind of like a bungee jump (which is coming next year). Also, you can walk outside, tethered to a safety cord. The coolest thing though, is the mast climb. Yes, you can climb to the top of the mast! No, we didn't do that.
The hill in the middle of the picture is the Guia Fortress. The large building under construction is the addition to the Casino Lisboa.
That be China! The bridge at the bottom of the picture connects Macau to Taipa Island, which is still part of Macau SAR.
After the tower we taxied it down to the south side of Coloane Island for lunch at Fernandos. There were some nice beach front bungaloes down there. It's relatively remote, and would be a great place to relax.
To finish of our time in Macau, we did a little go-karting. They don't drive any better on the track than they do on the street. I got t-boned pretty hard. There are brakes for a reason!
After that it was head back to China. The ceremonial border gate.
And this was waiting in line at Macau immigration. If Macau was this bad, just imagine what the Chinese immigration lines were like!!
After all that it was a 2.5 hour bus ride back to Guangzhou.

Tuesday I head to Nanjing for work and then to Shanghai on Wednesday evening until Saturday evening. Unfortunately my cousin Rebecca is back in Canada this week, so we won't be able to hang out this time. Maybe later. Hope you all enjoyed this journey.